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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a chronic condition that causes increasing difficulty in breathing as it progresses, is the third leading cause of death worldwide. The clinical diagnosis and monitoring of COPD and other pulmonary diseases can be taxing, often requiring blood testing, which can be uncomfortable for patients, or costly imaging procedures, such as CT scans. Additionally, COPD flare-ups can occur unexpectedly and progress rapidly, significantly increasing the risk of death.

Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) measurement offers a noninvasive approach to COPD monitoring that also has the potential to enable timely intervention. First proposed as a method for diagnosing disease by researchers in the 1970s, EBC measurements rely on affordable, portable point-of-care equipment to collect and cool a patient's exhaled breath, reducing the need for blood draws and offering a more accessible mode of detection for under-resourced or remote populations. The liquid condensate is then tested for biomarkers.

Inconsistencies between repeated measurements, however, have presented a significant challenge to the clinical implementation of EBC testing since it was first proposed. The prevailing scientific understanding is that this variation is biological, leaving little hope for standardization. To meet this challenge, researchers led by Jingcheng Ma, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, are taking a new approach by investigating the transition between the gas and liquid phases as a primary driver of biomarker loss during sample collection.

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